Feature Article | WIZZ magazine
The Afro-Swedes
WIZZ Magazine Feature: Yemisi Wilson, Between Stone and Memory
2024
Featured in the international travel and culture publication WIZZ Magazine. The article was photographed and written by Lola Akinmade Åkerström highlighting the sculptor’s creative journey across Sweden, Italy, and Nigeria, during Yemisi’s solo show 2024, at the gallery SouthNord. SouthNord Artspace is a gallery and artistic hub that shows Afro Nordic Artists.
“Sculptor Yemisi Wilson guides me through her exquisite carvings made of granite and alabaster while we discuss her fascinating background.”
— Lola Akinmade Åkerström, WIZZ Magazine 57 ‘The Afro-Swedes’ feature
Her Story in Stone
Each sculpture carries a sense of place and ancestry. Wilson’s practice bridges continents and cultures, blending classical craft with contemporary vision. The result is work that feels both ancient and immediate — grounded in history yet alive in the present.
Art as Memory
For Wilson, stone is a vessel of memory. Every surface holds the trace of time and touch. Her sculptures remind us that strength, like stone, endures through patience and persistence.
WIZZ Magazine Article
Read the full article here
Sculptor Yemisi Wilson guides me through her exquisite carvings made of granite and alabaster while we discuss her fascinating background. Her dad hails from Nigeria, while her mother is Swedish and left the country for the UK at 19 years old.
Yemisi’s own artistic journey spans Italy, Spain, India and Sweden. “That’s also why I think I have a strong character too,” she says. “I come from a family of strong women. And to work with material such as stone, you need to be stubborn.”
The world-renowned sculptor’s ongoing exhibitions
pay homage to her grandmothers, Ebunola and Anna, and they deeply explore her Nigerian-Swedish heritage, reflecting on family history, roots and identity using materials such as alabaster, marble and black granite. Her latest show is at the Southnord art gallery in Stockholm, where Zimbabwean-Swedish artistic director, Marcia Harvey Isaksson, ensures that there is always space set aside for Black and Afro-Nordic artists.
For Yemisi, picking a favourite medium is like having a current boyfriend. You’re in love with it right at this moment – whether it’s marble or alabaster – until a new love comes along: Indian granite.
Stones can date back billions of years and according to Yemisi, “a sculptor can never give up.
It takes so much time, patience, and physicality with hammers, saws and chisels, but you need to be eager to see what’s around the corner. When you open it up, it’s the first time that that surface hits the air. So it’s a material of memory. It’s made of memory because it’s billions of years old.”
This is also why we immortalise people and cultures in stone, she notes. “Historically, when there’s war, we melt metal down to make weapons. We burn wood to make fires, but stone is timeless. It gives me a safe ground for my feet being part of the diaspora – I belong to Sweden, I belong to Nigeria, I belong to Italy. I belong to women who raised their child alone.
There are so many groups that I belong to. Working with stone grounds me.”
yemisiwilson.com, southnord.com
